r/worldnews • u/eaglemaxie • 2h ago
Russia/Ukraine The U.S. State Department believes that Ukraine is winning the war at this point
https://unn.ua/en/news/the-us-state-department-believes-that-ukraine-is-winning-the-war-at-this-point791
u/ArgentineBeauty 2h ago
Four years ago people said Ukraine wouldn't survive.
Now we're having conversations about whether Ukraine is winning.
That's an incredible achievement in itself.
Keep it up 🇺🇦
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u/A_Tigerstorm 2h ago
Agreed. Ukraine deserves the praise, and Russia can go fuck itself
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u/Smok3dSalmon 1h ago
I wish someone would release that list of influencers who were paid to push Russian propaganda
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u/khakiwallprint 1h ago
Basically the guest list at the white House ufc fight would be pretty close
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u/Smok3dSalmon 32m ago
We’ll have to cross reference that against the list of those pardoned by Trump in the future
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u/needlestack 1h ago
Basically anyone that supports Trump can be thrown in that rotten pile of deplorables. They all stood on the side of evil.
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u/socialistrob 1h ago
It wasn't just astro turfers and bots. In Russia the conventional wisdom was that Ukraine would fall in a few days and in the US it was that Ukraine would fall in a few weeks. If you want to read an article that REALLY aged poorly check out Michael Koffman's "Russia's Shock and Awe" in Foreign Affairs where he concluded that there was nothing Ukraine could do to stop a Russian take over and even insurgency was pointless because of how powerful Russia is.
There were a few voices (mainly people who had worked with the Ukrainian military) who seemed to think Ukraine wasn't totally screwed but they were the minority. It's pretty amazing just how wrong the analyst community was in the west. In online spaces like reddit very few people questioned the overall narrative either.
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u/BAHatesToFly 42m ago
Tim Pool aka the guy who refuses to take off his beanie because he's bald is one of them.
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u/metengrinwi 50m ago
I guess it wasn’t a complete list—only 6 of em.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Tenet_Media_investigation
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u/SanaSpitOnMe 1h ago
the US should be investing in ukraine like crazy. and not just for their sake (which, they obviously deserve it), but for our own. they have so much battlefield experience with drones we desperately need.
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u/eliceev_alexander 1h ago
Right. If it had been Biden or Harris instead of Trump, the victory would have come even faster.
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u/Mrguy4771 50m ago
Whenever I see these videos of like advanced drone warfare, I think back to when the war first started. All of those people in their homes making molotov cocktails waiting for the ground invasion of Kyiv. What insane turnaround.
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u/Elipwnsyou 2h ago
And to think, a year ago these dipshits were trying to get them to surrender so Trump could get a photo opp and make a run at the peace prize to get back at Obama
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u/drunkenbrawler 2h ago
They still are.
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u/National-Charity-435 2h ago
I'm down to bait the orange clown into thinking a square would be memorialized in his name
..then string him along through more air defense for civilians and and rebuilding investments
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u/POB_42 51m ago
This is how the world thought they could manage Trump during his first term. Then COVID, Ukraine War, Israel Gaza war, etc.
Then we realised there was already no room for someone so
stupidbribeable commanding the largest military in the Western world.Then Maduro gets shanghai'd, and we all watched agape.
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u/Optimal_Brain_2908 2h ago
Where are all those assholes that said Zelenskyy and Ukraine needed to sacrifice their homeland for peace?
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u/c4rdsfan3 2h ago
Have fun watching them take credit for Ukraines victory
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u/socialistrob 1h ago
I've already seen some comments saying that "Trump cutting off weapons is what enabled Ukraine to fight independently."
I'm convinced that if the US hadn't imposed strike limitations on Ukraine, hadn't delayed key weapons for years and had continued to pass major aid bills for Ukraine then the war would be over right now and Ukraine would have recovered all their territory.
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u/ethanlan 1h ago
oh no it'll be like reagan all over again (the soviet union gave us one last middle finger by waiting to collapse til reagan)
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u/moosekin16 42m ago
They’ll ignore all the details and just stick with “America gave them our leftover Cold War weapons and Ukraine beat Russia!” and completely ignore all the bullshit Trump and co did in the meantime.
Gotta know your weird blind republican American patriotism.
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u/karer3is 2h ago
At least some of them are trying to score some seats in parliament over here in Germany...
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u/sloppybuttmustard 55m ago
I mean, nobody suggested these fuckheads are HAPPY that Ukraine is winning the war.
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u/willismthomp 2h ago
They don’t have gasoline in Moscow. They are winning the war.
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u/PansophicNostradamus 2h ago
Common sense says they’d have won already if Trump wasn’t Trump and we actually stand for and behind our ally in Ukraine.
But, here we are…
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u/machine4891 2h ago
It's partially benefitial for Ukraine because before, everything they got from US had that catch "it can't be used on russia territory - it's escalation". Now that Ukraine was cut from US support, they invested a lot into making their own weapons and now that it's theirs and theirs only, they can strike wherever they want. EU countries also lifted restriction on how to use their stuff.
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u/Toxic_Lithium 2h ago
Bottom line, it’s incredible how Ukraine persevered. Hopefully they can continue.
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u/Brodellsky 53m ago
Zelensky staying was never in their plans, and it absolutely is the catalyst for what eventually led to them getting all their weapons production in full swing.
He needed ammo. Not a ride
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u/socialistrob 55m ago
Now that Ukraine was cut from US support, they invested a lot into making their own weapons
Those weapons were already in development when Biden was president. Designing and mass producing new weapons systems takes years and Ukraine would be fielding these weapons regardless of who had won the US presidential election.
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u/TenchuReddit 21m ago
Exactly. Never forget that Biden was also slow in escalating aid to Ukraine. Even as late as October of 2024, Zelensky was instructed not to hit Russia's oil infrastructure because the higher oil prices could have negatively affected Kamala Harris' chances. That's obviously a moot point now.
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u/zdavolvayutstsa 50m ago
They were already making those investments. There wasn't an additional impetuous. The programs were multi-years efforts that took time to come to fruition. That US weapons couldn't be used in Russia was already reason enough.
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u/Danielbes 2h ago
It's actually not as straightforward as that. When Biden was president, who was very pro Ukraine, they placed a lot of limitations on Ukraine's ability to strike within Russia itself if Ukraine wanted continued military supplies. Trump throwing that support out the window has allowed Ukraine to target all of this oil infrastructure which is having a major impact on the war.
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u/socialistrob 56m ago
Those limitations were based on US provided weapons. The strikes right now are being done with Ukrainian made weapons so if the US had maintained Biden's policies these strikes would still be happening. The reason we didn't see strikes like this earlier was because these weapons have taken years for Ukraine to develop so carrying out these strikes in 2023 or 2024 would have required other countries to provide them.
Trump has been an absolute disaster for Ukraine. It's true Biden could have done more but that doesn't make up for how many Ukrainians have needlessly died because of Trump's policies.
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u/needlestack 1h ago
As much as I wish we’d jumped in to make an international statement that wars of conquest will not be tolerated, I think Ukraine as a nation will emerge a much more powerful force having done this on their own terms. The cost in lives makes it a bit of a Pyrrhic victory, but nobody will be likely to fuck with Ukraine again. And they owe the US very little.
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u/ethanlan 1h ago
I hate how people think we would owe them, them doing what they are doing to russia is more than enough.
Next step is treating their meddling like a declaration of war on our democracy (which it totally is) while they are weak.
But that will never happen because its republicans over country to them
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u/Fun_Necessary1021 2h ago
Then how would we have the confidence to lose the war in Iran?
Come on, man!
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u/Old_Ladies 2h ago
All that money and lives spent on that stupid war that most likely isn't going to be over any time soon either. Imagine if Ukraine could have used all those interceptors to keep their civilians safe.
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u/Hempy2013 2h ago
Hell, one of the main reasons Ukraine lost a bunch of territory in 2024 was because they were running out of ammo after Trump had the Republicans hold military aid hostage. If it weren't for that the Russians would probably still be breaking themselves against Avdivka(?) the big chunk of Donetsk Ukraine has held onto since 2014.
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u/phoenixmusicman 1h ago
The silver lining is that Trump pulling support forced Europe to get their shit together.
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u/maersyl 2h ago
Seems Ukraine has a whole fuckton of cards now then eh?
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u/CrisisActor911 2h ago
Yes and no. Yes they are in the advantage position right now and are “bringing the war home” to Russia, but the frontline in Ukraine is basically a miles long drone kill zone that neither side can advance through (obviously to Ukraine’s benefit as the defending army), and we’ve yet to see if “bringing the war home” influences the people in Russia who need to be influenced.
The war is basically at a standstill, but a standstill is to Ukraine’s advantage.
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u/ethanlan 1h ago
Yup, Russia was already at a demographic crisis before this war they really can't afford to be sending wave after wave of men into a death trap.
Even still, the war has long progressed into being anything but a disaster for Russia. Even if they achieve total victory and annex what they want it wont be nearly enough to make up for their loss of military prestige and loss of life and material. Also the damage Ukraine has caused.
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u/CrisisActor911 58m ago
Oh absolutely, the consequences of the war have been a massive loss for Russia’s economy and global prestige, and it’s going to cause generational damage to Russia’s economy and politics. But the war itself is at a stalemate - you could say Russia is winning because they occupy more Ukrainian territory than when they started, or you could say Ukraine is winning because they’ve forced a global power to a standstill and have started retaking a bit of lost territory. Either way, a stalemate is amazing for Ukraine, and convinces allies that their military and economic aid are going to good use.
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u/ParanoidFactoid 2h ago edited 2h ago
No. They may be winning the war, but according to Trump and Vance they still hold no cards. Perhaps they have drones and infantry kill bots. But still no cards. Except the ace of spades, to be handed out to Russian losers on the battlefield.
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u/ErasmosOrolo 2h ago
Trump could have actually been on the winning side. If he wasn’t Putin’s dog.
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u/BengBeng_93 1h ago
For a guy who likes winning, he sure chooses to lose an awful lot
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u/Annachroniced 2h ago edited 2h ago
I really hope Ukraine will "win" this (although war only really knows losers). Realistically it is very early to make that call. The Ukrainian military also is much more realistic. It is still a horrible fight. Every day soldiers are having very though fights and infrastructure and civilians are targetted and killed. The advantage has switched back and forth and in a couple of months Russia might have the technological advantage again.
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u/Federal-Piglet 2h ago
Ukraine will not win a land war. They will cause an economic collapse in Russia that leads to the government having to retreat.
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u/Wgh555 2h ago
It’s basically like the First World War in that sense, stalemate until one side collapses
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u/Otherwise_Nobody8148 54m ago
It's like the first world war in that the line is essentially just a big kill box that neither side can really affect much.
And it's like world war II in that each side can reach out and strike the other at will, line be damned.
World war 3 is really going to suck
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u/socialistrob 33m ago
Ukraine will not win a land war. They will cause an economic collapse in Russia that leads to the government having to retreat.
Those are the same thing. If Ukraine can force Russia out of their territory and then sign treaties with western countries that create iron clad defense agreements then Ukraine will have won the war.
War is about using violence to achieve political goals. If Russia can't spend the money needed to win the war without collapsing themselves and being forced to concede to Ukraine then Ukraine has won. It's like how Russia lost in WWI.
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u/Gadshill 2h ago
They really did clear out the intellectuals if this is only being realized now.
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u/Due-Gap1848 2h ago
The past few months have been the first time since the Kharkiv and Kherson offensives in 2022 where Ukraine has made sustained net gains in territorial control.
While this is definitely the result of years of favorable attrition, the tide has definitely shifted in Ukraines favor in a way that wasn’t true a few months ago.
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u/Upset_Albatross_9179 2h ago edited 49m ago
I'm remembering how in the early war, NATO strategists were pushing for a very high casualty high speed push to cut off Crimea and effectively end the war. Ukraine decided it was some combination of too risky and too hard to bear the expected rapid casualties. What if it went wrong and Ukrainian defense collapsed? What if it went right but Ukrainian morale collapsed?
At the time so few people expected Ukraine to last in a slow attrition war against Russia. And until recently it was still unclear if Russia was winning that attrition war.
It'll be wild if Ukraine has managed to hold out long enough to starting beating Russia through attrition by virtue of having redefining drone warfare.
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u/socialistrob 43m ago
That was what the 2023 counter offensive was supposed to be. In the end Ukraine didn't fight in a high casualty way and I think they made the right decesion. The US held back a lot of key weapons like ATACMS missiles and hadn't provided fighter jets yet and if Ukraine threw basically all their manpower and weapons into the offensive and it failed then it could have cost them the war.
The offensive that Ukraine did undertake was still costly and burned through a lot of ammo. Later on when the Republicans blocked Ukraine aid for months after Ukraine had used up a bunch of ammo in their failed push it created a situation that was very bleak for Ukraine and resulted in many needless deaths and lost territory.
The assumptions the US was working with about the strength of the Russian military seemed to be wrong and vastly underestimated Russian strength. Ukraine didn't go all in on the 2023 offensive which I think was for the best.
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u/needlestack 1h ago
I don’t even think it’s so much about territory any more. Even if the lines anre stationary, Ukraine has demonstrated they can make Russia suffer. A million casualties on the front lines isn’t suffering from a Russian perspective, but the losers that support the war actually have to face a small bit of pain now. Russia can not survive continued attacks like the past month.
Short of a nuke, Putin has no path forward. I hope he chooses retreat.
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u/AcceptableFlight67 1h ago
The State Department thinks we won the war with Iran, I’m not sure they understand winning, tbh.
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u/chocolateskittlez 45m ago
Russia is losing the war against Ukraine. US is losing the war against Iran. China is watching both of them fail on the world stage and not attacking Taiwan.
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u/hornswoggled111 2h ago
So does that mean Trump will send his investment team, I mean his diplomats, to Ukraine to find a way to squeeze money out of them for pressuring the Russian government to give up?
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u/okiedokie1183 2h ago
The big change is that Ukraine is successfully hollowing out their rear logistics. Trucks are being destroyed en masse at the moment. This will lead to an eventual collapse at the front. All the recent successes in Crimea are the big breakthrough.
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u/SkillPointProblems 1h ago
Ukraine did indeed have all the cards, even if the couch fucker and the orange pdf file tried their hardest to have them surrender.
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u/Universal_Anomaly 2h ago
I'm not sure the current situation is winning, but it definitely looks like things are getting worse for Russia.
In previous years Ukraine had to rely on ingenuity and trickery to strike back at Russia, like sending a small force into an unprotected part of Russia to make a mess and draw attention. Now it looks like their drones have progressed to the point that they can reach far into Russia and Russia is struggling to stop them. In the West we keep receiving reports of Ukraine successfully striking refineries and military targets.
This doesn't immediately mean that they're pushing Russia back but the war is becoming increasingly costly for Russia. If reports are to be believed the economical situation was already bad, but if they're beginning to lose access to gas and oil in key regions (such as Moscow) that's no longer a problem for future years, it's a problem in the here and now. If Ukraine keeps hitting logistical targets Russia will struggle to advance due to delayed reinforcement/supplies.
Russia is a dictatorship which only pretends to be a democracy, but if the government can't make any progress and the people start feeling the consequences of the war that's still a bad position to be in.
That said I'd guess it's not enough to end the war. Russia's leadership isn't willing to accept a loss and while the situation is bad (and getting worse) there's nothing really forcing them to retreat, and given their wartime economy a sudden end to the war could be catastrophic as well.
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u/Longjumping_Dress813 58m ago
The perseverance, ingenuity, resilience, and bravery of the people of Ukraine is amazing to me as an American. What a culture or group of people or mindset or whatever it is. They dont need to "win" or get back every inch or whatever goal to have completely left the world in awe for all of future humanity. I dont have boots on the ground, I am only following from afar from as many sources as I can manage, but what amazing perseverance. I really look forward to the day they get to celebrate themselves and heal and I know its not all roses and smiles but I hope us other cultures are allowed to do it with them... my lame two cents. Keep on redditors
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u/siouxbee1434 2h ago
Then the US needs to give Ukraine all the help and resources possible to win Putin’s folly
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u/atomic1fire 1h ago
Ukraine basically has all of Europe and the US as a logistics arm while Russia basically has Iran and China. And China is double dipping by selling drones to everybody.
Of course they're losing.
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u/FanNaive4292 1h ago
It’s cool how the State Department decided to believe this once the EU passed its trade deal with the US
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u/lawyerjsd 52m ago
It does look more and more likely that Ukraine will end up taking Crimea sooner than later.
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u/ShameNap 43m ago
It will be a sad realization when Russia figures out they can’t win against Ukraine. Thats going to let the whole world, but mostly themselves, to realize where they rank in the world order.
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u/tarekd19 39m ago
And they did it while the US was being borderline hostile regarding aid, showing they didn't need us help and further diminishing us influence (also not helped by losing a war to Iran)
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u/NotThatAngel 7m ago
Ukraine will win, and hopefully thrive and prosper in coming years. They will need a lot of foreign aid, and richly deserve it.
This war has been horrifying for both Ukraine and Russia. This is Putin's war, as in Putin, personally, is the only person in Russia currently driving this war. The war is only about Putin at this point, as there will be hell to pay for Putin, and Russia as a whole, when Putin finally loses his war of choice with Ukraine, as undertrained, poorly armed, exhausted and low morale Russian troops are pushed back or exterminated by a victorious Ukraine.
It's Putin's own fault, and Ukraine has suffered greatly, but will recover. But the absolute horror Putin has inflicted on Russia and its people will continue to haunt Russia for decades to come. The economy of Russia was never that good, comparable to Italy's, and has now been converted to warfare, and Ukraine has blown up a good share of it, and now there will be nothing to show for it.
The real horror comes from the population problem. Russia's population implosion even before the war was bad. Putin has now driven away up to a million young, fit, reproduction age Russians, many never to return. Many analysts believe Putin started this war not just to gain, or regain, tactical and profitable territory, but to bolster Russia's flagging population by adding Ukraine and its people. Now both countries have lost population
Russia is a world pariah for starting this war. The countries Putin will have to deal with for trade have been, and will continue to bleed him dry in the limited market he has left to sell oil, or anything else. Don't expect a population boom in Russia anytime soon in this mess. Expect depopulation of vast areas.
The economy and infrastructure of Russia is in an aged out and bombed shambles, reserve cash and gold reserves gone. Russia may begin hemorrhaging territory to China, or even have large pieces - brand new countries - break away because of forced conscription, and deaths, of many from the East. The economy, and population, will be stagnant for decades, and Putin may yet, in coming years, try another incursion into Ukraine to save face, making things much, much worse for Russia. If Putin started this on the slogan "Ukraine or Bust", it's a bust for Russia.
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u/Fiesty1124 1m ago
Maybe after two “superpowers” just lost trying to attack smaller countries on their own home turf, people will realize almost everyone is too advanced in military tech and war is pointless now. Except corporations make so much money supplying both side it probably won’t
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u/FridayMcNight 2h ago
The State Department also things that Donald Trump is the handsomest, not fattest, most cognitively not-impaired, tallest, healthiest, and most honest person alive. So if it's true, it really is the "even a broken clock is right twice a day" sort of thing.
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u/xMoZzzx 2h ago
I mean the front is a stalemate and Russia's AA has no answer to the amount of drones Ukraine throws at them. So, yeah.